


Make A Wish Anyway

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: Caught In All, The Stars Are Hiding [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Bittersweet, Dialogue Heavy, Dreams vs. Reality, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated (soon), Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Loss, M/M, Making Love, Multiple Relationships, Out of Character (I Guess?), Pining, Post-Canon Cardassia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stream of Consciousness, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: Dawn is a strange time for lovers; the last moment to hide before the glare of day brings with it realities that are most easily obscured and forgotten in the night. These are, after all, uncertain times.Or: "Broken bottles shine just like stars."





	Make A Wish Anyway

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this series was over. Famous last words.
> 
> But then I began reading Una McCormack's _The Crimson Shadow_ and . . . the relationship between Parmak and Garak just warms my heart . . . and suddenly, inexplicably, somehow, I ended up feeling incredibly damn _guilty_ that I'd wrapped up the series (in an open-ended way) with Parmak left . . . alone. _Without_ Garak.
> 
> So. Reality, fallout, aftermath of all.
> 
> Now I do think the series is done. I might well have shot myself in the foot, to be honest, so here are my sincerest apologies to all who joined this little experimental train for just some Garak / Bashir fluff-and-they-deserve-better-so-here-it-is-I-guess (including myself!). But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't see how their lives could do anything _except_ diverge.
> 
> Title and lyrical snippet are from Gregory Alan Isakov's ["All Shades of Blue"](https://gregoryalanisakov.com/songs/all-shades-of-blue):  
> "When the wine stops working  
> and you’re all run out,  
> and all of your high hopes have all headed south,  
> and the songs left the stable and they never came home,  
> and there ain’t no forgetting that you’re out on your own . . .
> 
> Broken bottles shine just like stars; make a wish anyway.  
> Just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house  
> that was darkened for days.  
> Been thinking you probably should stay.  
> Yeah, I think that you probably should stay."
> 
> Thoughts'n'things, comments/critiques and reviews are all welcome. I do hope you enjoy. <3

It's late. The moons have sunk in slow repose and somewhere on the horizon, struck by the same smeared brush and unsteady stroke, waxes a vermillion streak, a promised dawn and heat and light: ah, but not brightness: no, never brightness now, not for dust and constant atmospheric swills. The war has _changed_ Cardassia, and not merely its people and topography: the weather's changing, too.

They've wandered through the places Julian recognizes on intuition as those from Garak's childhood. It needn't be chalked up to genetic enhancements to piece the paths together, nor Garak's wish that what he'd written of become, for just a moment, in the darkness and liminality of night, reality again. That through his letter—the intangible—and the reality of their footsteps, their breathing, their nearness to one another, Julian himself might catch just a glimpse of what once was, what might be again.

He isn't sure he saw it, not in the moonslight-swaddled landscape of skeletal buildings and sifted dust (always the dust) and the ghosts crying in the wind and night for recompense: no burials, no blood, no _perek_ flowers could be enough . . . not yet. Not for a long time yet. Julian knows that on nearly every conscience weighs the unholy mirrored truth: the slaughter of Cardassians in their own streets, on their own world—their homes—by the Jem'Hadar was so very much the same, in many ways, as the near-genocide on Bajor—

He might once have called it something like karmic retribution but—

Here, _here_ , seeing the shadows there beneath the ever-gentle Parmak's eyes, the hollow-cheeked and hungry, disillusioned, proud—the bystanders—who now cling grimly to life and what can be saved—

Violence, in equal, flash-quick measure, for five decades' worth of violence—

"Doctor?"

The syllables are soft, and slight, and Julian looks up, looks up in the ever-mounting bloodred dawn, startled to hear Federation Standard after a night and hours of . . . he doesn't know . . . shivers to remember it . . . Kardasi, of course it was Kardasi, but he'd never in all his life suspected it to be so . . . beautiful. And Federation Standard, for all its eloquent potential, as a mere auditory stream of sounds holds nothing to it.

Vaguely he smiles. Garak had insisted, many times more than the last time they met aboard the station, that Cardassian culture and art and literature were second to none. Well enough they might never settle _that_ debate . . . but ah, their language? Julian finds himself now inclined to agree.

"Garak."

The shadow shifts, the bulk, tilted toward the light in idle curiosity until Julian catches a rounded cheek, a ridge, the interplay of scales.

"It won't be cold for long, Doctor."

And the Human smiles in earnest then, catching the flickered expression on the Cardassian's face, a smile too, awkward echoed invitation.

"But it is now," he murmurs.

"Yes, I suppose."

Garak shifts from the doorframe, nearer to Julian—a sacrifice, the doctor knows—for the shed was never really big enough for him alone, which is to say nothing of the both of them.

It has not surprised Garak in the slightest that Julian, upon their return, would immediately fish out his Starfleet pin and reattach it to his uniform; it's something of a security blanket, to borrow a phrase from Human psychology and the continued and endearing custom: a grown man certainly can't carry around a tattered teddy bear but there are other reassuring things to hold onto in the dark and on a world which is not one's own.

Almost as if the good doctor can read his thoughts, a smooth, warm hand finds his. Something now is different, something has changed . . .

"Should I contact the good counselor and thank her?"

Julian jerks sharply, stares at Garak with a gaze which he knows full-well isn't nearly as intimidating as he hopes. Anger prickles at his tongue before he realizes that the Cardassian isn't being flippant by intent. "What are you talking about?"

"Well . . ." Garak folds his hands, in so doing pressing Julian's between them, "come now, Doctor, you mentioned oh-so-briefly that you and she had simply realized that the circumstances which drew you together in the first place were no longer applicable; without that scaffolding, there was little more to keep you bound to one another."

"She's a good person—"

"Ah!" Garak shakes his head. "You misunderstand. I do not presume to pronounce _moral_ judgement, Doctor—merely to state that your explanation's rather lacking." A pause. "After everything, Doctor, you know well I never expected you to come—and least of all did I expect you to come thusly. Shaking hands, Delavian chocolates . . . Come now, a few hours ago you did not deny what was implied."

"What?" Julian shifts, uncomfortable, not for what might be but what has been and the sheer rawness of it. "Garak—"

"You once reacted to me with this same . . . ah . . . endearing rapture. Even now I sense it from you: wanting, fearing, oscillating constantly between the two for some reason I will never understand. It seems rather a relic, it _must_ be, from some darker strand of Humanity's past."

"That's a rather broad generalization." Julian licks his lips, dry from the air, from the water-rations, finds solace in a lecture— "Yes, generally, the predominant cultures as held sway over Earth in Human history have had negative attitudes towards anything but heterosexuality, excepting celibacy, I suppose, and the sociocultural gender identities constructed around the biological sexual binary—male and female—although many local and indigenous cultures were far more accepting of not only what became known as sexual orientations but gender identities as well—"

" _Doctor_." Even the translator cannot screen out a hiss within the word, a snare of impatience. "I have studied your history as well as you; Human you might be but history it is to _all_ of us, so far removed your Federation is from antiquated prejudices . . . ah, or so I'm told, although of course each individual might well wage an ancient war within themselves for one reason or another."

Almost gently now the Cardassian begins to play his hands against the Human's own, still caught between them, caressing them, tracing the heat-swollen veins, the knuckles, the little valleys where the skin is thin and softer still.

"I do think I should thank Ezri at some point," he adds at last. "And I mean that with sincerity, Doctor. I believe she must have helped you. Wishing no offense to you, but I cannot see you having reached any sort of . . . peace . . . with this on your own, let alone acting on it . . . Not when you and I had seven years together in which you might have found your peace."

Another pause. Julian shifts, lulled by the tracing of his hands, mesmerized. The near-dawn-night is cold: inexplicably this time, it's Garak who seems to be the source of heat between them now. Head bowed, he slips the question loose, a wonderment, a thing to be carefully examined—something he must know—

"Why didn't you give up?"

Garak laughs, the sound swirling around the room, decibels chasing one another about the walls and all the nooks and crannies, the dust and the broken tools and the seeds waiting for good topsoil and hopes and the Human and Cardassian huddled there amongst them. When blue eyes are cast through semi-darkness, finally, they answer nothing, and Julian expects no more than that.

* * *

"What do you want here, Doctor?"

They have been silent for a while. Dirty light plays against the horizon now, over the scarred and battered city's silhouette. A stiff wind blows, kicks up dust, sets the shed's weak walls to soughing. How _this_ place survived is beyond anyone's best guess . . .

The Human shrugs, knows what lies far beneath the question. Not really _why_ , not really _what might happen_ , what will happen _now_ between them, in this moment, in the shed. His own pulse beats out a sharp tattoo, of trepidation and exhilaration . . . Garak must feel it, through his shallow skin and swollen veins; those thick-scaled fingers still caress his own. Again, almost compulsively, he licks his lips, catches the trace of sweetness from the chocolate they had shared.

"Doctor, forgive me, but you are no ascetic. You've had your share of bedmates."

"As have you."

A knowing smirk, then a somber shadow there, nestled just between the Cardassian's eye ridges. "That's not what you came for." A pause. "If it's what you wish, Doctor, you must tell me. I will not guess, I will not extract it from you like a confession in the heat of the moment. I will not lead you down that road, starry-eyed, if you're but _curious_. If this is but a triviality. A foolish, love-struck-but-uncertain hope for what can't be."

Julian tilts his head, startled yet again, realizing at once his prejudice: not all of Garak's people, which is to say nothing of the male himself, are insatiable, seductive and rapacious . . . Seductive he would grant Garak, of course, but—

Well. That's all entirely unfair. How many beings would he know—Human or otherwise—who'd take a moment such as this and throw all caution to the wind and simply . . .

Be?

In love, reckless, willing and giving of themselves simply because in this moment, in the next moment, it might end?

And yet it's Garak who's the cautious one—Garak who's waited all these years—

He draws a breath. "As Cardassia rebuilds . . . as Deep Space 9 rebuilds—I mean, with Sisko gone—as the Federation and Starfleet recollect themselves after the war, I . . . could be reassigned, could be . . . kept busy . . . Getting just a bit of extra leave was . . . difficult . . ." Another breath, hazel-dark eyes averted now. "Someday I hope we see each other again. I hope we have more than correspondence."

"But we live in such uncertain times. Yes. That's true enough."

"I can't guarantee that I'll be able to come back—not often."

"Nor could I, so long in exile, leave."

"There's something romantic, isn't there, about it? Lovers separated by the stars."

"Romantic, but that's all for holodramas and old literature, Doctor. We're too wise for that."

". . . Yes, I suppose we are."

* * *

"What do _you_ want, Garak?"

"If I were to merely say the satiation of seven years' worth of desire, I suspect that you would be all the less inclined."

A shrug, rather shocking in its own right. "Maybe not. I . . . Garak, you don't know how much I struggled with it. You always had a habit of slipping through the cracks—idle thoughts or dreams. It was an easy enough charade to keep up in public, anyway—just the two of us, good friends, an easy banter, a . . . an easiness, a physical closeness between us. Platonic. But."

"That's what you call it, Doctor? A charade?"

"No. But God. That's what I needed it to be . . . you understand?"

A subtle nod. "To some extent, yes, Doctor, with that much I can empathize."

Julian slips his hands free of the male's, flexes them a moment in the cold, then begins to trace the patterns of grey scales and innumerable scars. "It was selfish."

"As were my actions, the day we met. Don't you remember?"

"You knew I was a greenling." Julian's shoulders shake in a bout of silent laughter. "In a way, _this_ way, I still am."

"That is what I want."

The words are soft, guileless, around them slipped nuances the translator can't catch—subtle inflections, Kardasi laced within the rather droll matrices of Federation Standard. For a moment the Human remembers what the Cardassian had written—the days when sexual desire was like any other bodily desire, hunger, thirst, weariness—a thing to be satiated, satisfied, no more—and wonders for a moment what this is. If Garak warns him that this had better not be an act of idle curiosity, not true desire, then Julian is tempted to fire back that this had better not be merely a matter of lust.

But one look into those cerulean eyes stops him, and he reminds himself yet again that the past is not a linear affair for Garak; in this moment, perhaps, he too thinks of lovers and—mistakes? Regrets? He treads carefully tonight, so patient with the Human's stumbling . . .

"Your mind waxes chaotic far more than mine, Doctor." Garak's shadow falls across him in the mounting, dirty dawnlight. "Ironic. I know just where you stand within my thoughts, my memories, at times all more real to me than the reality I live . . . I look at you and see everyone who's shared themselves with me, for one reason or another. But I also look at you and see myself, perhaps, once as I was. And still more, I see you and I see a friend. I see nothing complicated now to pass between us. If it is what you want, then so it is, and so our lives move on from one another's, as always is the case. Needs mutually met, not so differently from how we grew close on the station, feeding each other's minds . . .

"But you? Humans might bed others for a night, a frivolous thing, a casual thing, as you might say. And yet nothing is casual to me, to my people. Brief, but never casual, never a thing to be forgotten . . . ah . . . but I have no emotional prejudices, and here I am waxing loquacious . . . Tell me, Doctor, would this do far more harm to you? From what part of yourself are you asking me? From what part of yourself are you giving yourself?"

"Is it ever easy when friends become lovers?"

"And then friends again when dawn breaks but hours from now, or so I should hope. Doctor, what night but this is there for us?"

"None."

"What would your linear mind give you, several years from now? If we do or do not—"

"Garak, I know the reality. I don't have words for what we are, or what will be. But I know that after tonight . . . we will be friends . . . cast across the stars . . . no more. No more. Just holders of a memory. A night."

Silence, heavy, heavy as the pulse beating in the doctor's throat, the shiver the male can hardly suppress because he'd doubted even until now just what the man would say. Those nimble tawny fingers which have never stopped stroking his hands are now dancing up his arm, almost unconsciously, until they're at his shoulder, close to the ridges there, erogenous, but not quite touching them.

"Garak. I am not a child. I will not break. This will neither confuse me nor destroy me, nor be among my list of . . . God . . . regrets." Julian leans close, waits there, waits there for Garak's answer—what a game this is—as are all games between them—convoluted, delicate— "You are my friend; for all our lives, that I can be." He swallows, throat dry, constricted, nervous for the newness, nervous not for repercussions. "But for this moment, just this moment if it's all we're given . . . It's not . . ." Unfair, the name; they both know it, acknowledge it, honor her with tact. "I know what this is, and I neither want nor ask for more."

A small sound of acquiescence slips through Garak's teeth, feral and gentle and triumphant with a smile drawn across his face, the same smile which all those years ago had sent a thrill through Julian that took seven years for him to untangle.

* * *

It does not surprise Julian in the slightest that Garak can so quickly undo him.

How quickly was first-fear pushed aside (strange it is, to experience it again, and so differently now with Garak than with his first girlfriend); how quickly did his body tune itself to the work of lithe and grey-scaled fingers, knowing lips and careful teeth? He doesn't know, need not think now, cannot think, can only _be_ , eyes half-rolled, awash in the strange giddiness, the rapture, forgetting now the shed, forgetting now the dust and cold against his skin and even the first moments of pain: forgetting too what all these hands have wrought, and that they have undone many others—more often than not in vicious ways: not for pleasure but a cold kernel of information . . .

And blue eyes there, always at a glance, to still him, steady him, the subtly-ground-out rhythm lost and caught again, a gentler key, because dawn will break but not so soon and there are some things which must be savored.

* * *

They are different.

Garak has seen many differences, does not mind them in the slightest, finds them all appealing and revels now in this, salty-tawny-skin and delving ribs and corded knots and sinews and external organs with single-headed genitalia. He's come to appreciate, often, that the differences between one being's physicality and another's are easy enough to understand: all beings that he's met thusly _want_ and _need_ and it's merely a matter of finding out just _how_. Of course he'd never say as much, but it's _this_ kind of undoing that he prefers to any other. Cries of pleasure are far sweeter to hear, and he'd much rather his hands be covered with something in some ways more intimate than blood.

The shed is small, small for himself and smaller for the two of them; their weak, dull shadows remind him of this, if he cares to look too long—of the nearness of the walls—but it doesn't matter—not quite so—not even when they've somehow managed to arrange themselves in a mutually-satisfying way—but face-to-face—they'd agreed on that much, without words, nothing needed saying—face-to-face and eye-to-eye—

The doctor whimpers, ducks his head reflexively, presses swollen lips against Garak's shoulder-ridges, muffling a cry, the rhythm caught again, a final time they know, this the last, and Garak kneads his hands against that slender back, the soft, soft skin, then drops them to those narrow hips, to steady them, because some instinct of the Human's in these final moments has given him a motion not well-suited to Cardassian anatomy. And as delicious as it is to be surrounded by so much desperate _heat_ as that fragile body convulses there around his own, the act is delicate. And so is he. Are they.

* * *

" _Julian_."

The translator picks up the raw cadence of the word, the long, slow winding syllables, twisting Kardasi into Standard—but Julian heard it enough in the hours of the darkness to recognize it, still there, there beneath the familiar Standard sound of it—his chosen name—Garak's whispered word of love when, long after he, the male trembles with a growled hiss, and Julian clings to him, half-caught for a second time in rapture—

* * *

"Elim."

Gently, softly. They lay together now in echo of that night so long ago, in Garak's quarters, though something's changed, so much has changed, and not merely this, not merely the act between them, the mingled sweat, their leaden limbs entwined. Dawn will come, will bear with it for Julian a shuttle to the stars, the station and Starfleet. Dawns of the days to come will bring too letters—letters beginning with "Dear Doctor," signed "Your friend." They know this, and treasure it, but bittersweetly so.

* * *

It's been a few days yet since that good doctor from the stars came in amongst the shuttles, bearing rations and medical supplies and water filtration systems. Kelas Parmak surveys the room—yes, he'll call it a room, little hovel though it is—from which he's been hosting a free clinic, though everyone knows it's far more than that. Proud the Cardassian people might be, and indomitable in spirit, but those who survived the Jem'Hadar were mostly citizens—giving more thought to a day's honest work and a meal or two than what transpired there amongst the stars. They were not soldiers . . . Now the world is crumbling, and once not so long ago did the night sky scream and the stars streak red . . .

People come to him for medicine, of one kind or another. A hypospray, a water bottle, an extra ration for an ailing child—yes, for those—but more often, far more often, they come simply to talk. To speak of death, of sights unimaginable, of wrongs, of pains, of sorrows, fears and nightmares. Parmak listens. Parmak, who has nightmares of his own but dares not speak. It's not his place to speak, not when it's Garak who's become their speaker for the dead.

_Where is he?_

He runs a hand through tousled hair, impossible to keep in order now that the wind's kicked up—it doesn't matter—but he smiles, briefly, remembering of all things the night Garak braided his hair and tied it back from his sweat-streaked brow. Uncertainty flashes through him, a lurching stomach, restless feet; the clinic is closed for the night, and he should be running inventory (there are thieves, it pains him to admit) but something pulls him elsewhere—just where he'd pointed that good doctor—down the road, through the gap in the buildings where the ground was open—where once there'd been a garden, sprawling, and fine houses—where now there are only desiccated stalks and weeds but maybe, maybe, a few little greenling shoots amongst the cairns.

* * *

Garak is in a bad way. Parmak can tell.

There's a layer of dust to suggest that he hasn't moved at all; the water rations are gone; there is no food. Hastily he reconsiders how many days it's been, then shakes his head, digs into the satchel slung across his shoulders, presses a bottle to those chapped and unresisting lips, presses his own lips then against that brow, sweaty, dust-streaked, scales dry and thick with fever.

"What's gotten into you, my friend?"

No answer; the male is like deadweight in the doctor's arms as he struggles to help him to his feet.

"I thought Dr. Bashir would do you good. Surely . . ."

He pauses, inhales deeply, smells not merely sweat and staleness but a trace, lingering—

That they'd made love does not surprise him overtly; that it was _here_ . . . well. There were far better places than this one, but—

(And can he deny)—as he stumbles with the reluctant Garak through the narrow door, out into the open— _The open, Elim!_ —(can he deny the sudden stab of jealousy? He's known of Dr. Julian Bashir, of course, for Garak speaks so often of him, with such gentleness and pride . . . but . . . ah, to _love_ the man? On that station and in exile, maybe it was so, but . . . here? Here, after they'd—

(Forgiveness finds many strains and measures and manners in which to shape itself—)

* * *

That becomes the cadence of his step: forgiveness. Forgiveness for those bright blue eyes which once broke him in hours and still, and still, trouble his dreams at times. Forgiveness for the need, the silken voice, the war and the destruction and the shattered world that pulled them into themselves, into each other—such raw hardship as that can so often bind two people together for a lifetime—

_But—this man—_

_Whatever were we, Elim, that you could pick up with him and put me aside? I don't begrudge you that so much, but . . . What are we now?_

* * *

He sleeps and dreams not of Julian but Kelas, Kelas, Kelas; _Kelas_ who will no more leave this world than he, not anymore; how could they?

He sleeps and dreams of the wire and withdrawals and begging Julian's forgiveness. It meant so much now. It still does, though of course the good doctor knew nothing then of who he was or what he'd done. The letter was in part the truth, and mostly lies.

He sleeps and dreams of water, cool, and again a figure there—not slender and tawny but long-haired, narrow-shouldered, open-faced: the figure who on so many occasions and for whatever reason Garak cannot fathom has told him he is _loved_.

* * *

He wakes.

The walls.

Darkness, sheer darkness, sharp darkness but for slivered light.

Dust motes dance, clutch at his throat.

The walls and floor rise up, rush in.

Someone is screaming, is it he?, is screaming nonsense, nonsense, spit-flecked syllables, Kardasi roughly torn into Standard and back again or mixed until the words are truly an unknown tongue.

* * *

"Deep breaths, Elim. Slowly now . . . Like this. With me. Do you remember? Like a _regnar_ , hm?"

There is a hand at his back, a soothing voice (when has the screaming stopped?), fresh air and open space. They stand for a long time in the gathering dawn, the dawn with its dirty brush of sickly yellow. Garak shivers, does as the doctor says.

Something is pressed into his hand, a foil, crinkled, sticky: the scent he'd recognized almost anywhere.

A half-melted-and-reformed bar of Delavian—

"I don't want—"

Roughly. When has he spoken last?

A smile, gentle, broadening Parmak's sweet and honest face: the opposite of all that has historically shaped Cardassia. Garak watches him, uncertain from what vantage point, or why.

"You don't want it? But it was a gift?"

No. No.

 _Julian gave that to me. And now he's gone, off to live his life in service to the Federation. We live in uncertain times: perhaps I will never again see him . . . And isn't it funny, Kelas, that_ I _was the one to worry him about whether or not this would destroy him? Ah. Ha. As if. What is it to me? I've slept with friends (and less than that) before but—_

_He—_

_But you—_

_You're the same; don't you see? Don't you understand what drew me to you? More than this world, Kelas—_

"Fine, then, Elim. It can't stand another melt, and the day will be getting hot soon . . . Hm."

_Have it, then. A gift as a gift. Kelas, what sweetness could I give you?_

The foil crinkles, is torn, is crumpled and pressed into a pocket.

Garak turns, finds that Kelas is watching him in kind. Without judgement, without fear, without hatred. How? How can someone be so good?

Tentatively he reaches out and the world sways and he should have eaten the damn chocolate but it doesn't matter, really, for there are ration-packets now, and water—a mission of mercy, Julian had called it—

Mercy. What is mercy? Does mercy wave a promise at a lonely man and male and then snatch it away? Or does it otherwise—

"You do not need to— Elim, be still. Be still. This is a shock. You knew that this would happen but reality is so often worse than our worst expectations . . . After everything you've been through, you and he . . . it is much, is much . . . Still, my dear, _be still_."

But his hands find Kelas Parmak's and he stumbles, leans against the other male, breathes deep the smell of him, eyes closed against the mounting dawn, lost for a moment to the darkness, to the vastness of the stars and the smallness of the world and the places in-between across which two or three beings such as themselves are scattered. Of course Julian Bashir is off to live his life, and well he should: he is young, and virile, and brilliant of body and mind: an asset to the Federation if ever there was. The cosmos are better for his presence there. Ah, but this microcosmic world, his beloved Cardassia? Fate has brought to him instead not only this hurting world and a headful of ideas gleaned from seven years' exile but—

But—

Of all people, _Kelas_ —

Half-blinded by grief and hope he fumbles; they brush brows and noses and then, finally, manage to find each other's lips—it's not for the kiss itself that they hold each other—nothing is so simple now—loss compounding loss, however good a loss can be—nor will it ever be again—but for the mounting light and hidden stars and there, the sweetest hint of chocolate.


End file.
